Preview

The Bravely series and its precursor, Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light, cemented themselves as comforting JRPGs for Nintendo handhelds. People could count on their fanciful stories that called back to a time where Square Enix games were all about crystals and gameplay that involved finding a good combination of job classes to propel you to success. With the Nintendo 3DS’ demise and the Nintendo Switch’s skyrocketing success, people might have wondered what was next. Well, 2019 revealed Bravely Default II would bring the IP to the console in 2020, and the March Nintendo Direct Mini brought with it a demo.

When it comes to roguelikes, there are certain sorts of weights people have bearing down on them. How much do you take into a dungeon with you, if you can? When should you abandon a run and attempt to escape to safety? Could that be the monster that kills me? With void tRrLM(); //Void Terrarium, NIS’ latest digital title about some poor unfortunate souls, there’s another pressure. It’s keeping a fragile child alive.

Persona 5 Scramble: The Phantom Strikers is a strange new world for the Shin Megami Tensei series. Never before has one taken such an active approach to battles, but Omega Force is welcoming it into the Musou line with this installment. While the idea may seem intimidating, especially since all previous Persona installments take a more leisurely, turn-based approach to battles, the demo shows off all the ways in which it is still true to the series.

Project Sakura Wars, known as Shin Sakura Taisen in Japan, is an opportunity. The series has been dormant for years and is being revived with a new developer (Sega CS2 R&D), a new character designer (Bleach’s Tite Kubo) and entirely new gameplay that abandons its strategic roots. It is a lot of change all at once. As a means of showing how what is old fuses with something new, the Shin Sakura Taisen demo does its best to try and introduce everything this installment attempts in a short amount of time.

Here’s a funny thing about Japanese mascot characters. They tend to get all sorts of games and products based on them. Hoppe-chan has been the star of a number of titles, typically on Nintendo platforms. Most recently, an ambitious cross-over occurred on the Nintendo Switch in Japan: Puru-Chara Friends: Hoppe-chan to Sanrio Characters. Hoppe-chan met Hello Kitty and her friends! It’s a relatively text-heavy game, but one that seems like it suits both the Hoppe-chan and Sanrio experiences.

Story of Seasons, more often than not, allow you to tell your own stories. While each town will have some sort of backstory and premise, players can self-insert themselves into roles as new farmers and community members. But occasionally, this formula is played with via crossovers. Doraemon: Story of Seasons is one of those times. A more predetermined path is at play, even though people still have the freedom to farm however they’d like, and the demo helps show how this process works in action.

Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio, the team behind the franchise known in the West as Yakuza, attempted to walk a fine line when building Judgment. It’s an entirely new type of game, except for when it’s not. It’s got a brand-new cast of characters, except for when it has some existing characters. It’s meant to be a fresh start for the team, but it’s set in freaking Kamurocho, the place players know like the back of their hands. So it makes more sense to think of it not as a new series on its own, but instead part of a constantly collaborating shared-universe project.

Umihara Kawase is back! By which I mean, both the physics-heavy, weird platformer series and its heroine are here again. Umihara Kawase Fresh! is heading to the Nintendo Switch worldwide, and things seem a little different this time around. Before, an installment would plop people into a strange, disjointed world, one where giant fish and frogs are ready to crush characters. All they would get is a fishing pole that functions as a grappling hook and means of pulling enemies into a surprisingly deep backpack. But with this new installment, players could be looking at one of the most enlightening and inviting entries in the Umihara Kawase series.

Pet simulators on Nintendo platforms have a rather high bar to clear. This is a company that has given the world Nintendogs, then Nintendogs + Cats. Both games give people the chance to play with many adorable animals from an array of different breeds. The second one even manages to make cats, animals that sleep about 12 hours each day, interesting. Little Friends: Dogs & Cats has big shoes to fill. Fortunately, if the Japanese demo is any indication, it seems like it is going to do its best to attempt to embody the spirit of Nintendo’s iconic pet simulation series.